


Risks and Rewards

by xxSparksxx



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 00:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11391123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: Ross and Demelza have a discussion about the risks and rewards of childbirth, and the merits of medical care.Spoilery for 3.04.





	Risks and Rewards

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to mmmuse for beta-reading and the title.

“She’s perfect,” Ross breathed. He swayed a little with the bundle in his arms, staring down in awe at the tiny baby swaddled in blankets. He somehow seemed to forget, between each birth, just how _small_ babies were when they were first born. And this one – Clowance, they’d decided, if it was a girl – seemed smaller than either of the others had been, her features so tiny, her nose and her mouth and her eyelashes on her cheeks. Ross almost wanted to unwrap her from her blankets, to see each little finger and toe, to make sure that all was as it should be. But he refrained; it was cold in here, even with the fire going. “So small,” he marvelled. 

“No smaller than Julia was,” Demelza said. He tore himself away from Clowance to look at her. Demelza looked radiant, and beautiful, propped up against the pillows in the bed, her hair in a messy plait over her shoulder. Clearly she was as happy as he was, happy with another child, another girl, not to replace Julia – never that – but to add to their happiness. But she was a little pale, he thought. He’d seen her look worse after childbirth – Jeremy’s birth had been difficult, and at that birth and Julia’s, Ross had stormed into the room as soon as he’d been allowed, before Demelza had even had a chance to wash her face or tidy her hair. Clearly she’d had longer, this time; time enough to wash, perhaps to put on a fresh nightgown, to plait her hair and to carefully swaddle Clowance. But still, she looked a little pale, though her eyes shone and her smile was wide. “She’s got a brave pair of lungs,” Demelza added, beaming up at him. “She yelled fit to wake the dead, when she came out. I’m surprised you didn’t hear her down at Grace.”

Ross decided it would be better not to mention his wander onto Wheal Leisure land, and thus how far he had been from Nampara. “But you should have sent for Dr Choake,” he said, carefully handing the baby back to her mother. Demelza laid Clowance in the blankets again, and covered up all but her little face. He settled on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the small child in her nest. He couldn’t help reaching out to touch her, stroking his fingers under her cap and over the downy-soft hairs on her head. “You say it was fast, but…but at any rate, you’ve sent for him now?” 

“No, what on earth for?” There was a lightness in Demelza’s voice that made him pause and look sharply at her. She looked levelly back, but he knew her too well to be fooled.

“I can think of any number of reasons,” he said, trying to keep worry from making him sound stern, “not least of which is my desire, selfish as it may be, to make sure my wife and daughter are in good health.” Demelza inhaled, but Ross went on. “It’s no doubt foolish of me, to insist on such poor medical attention as we can muster without Dwight, but I distinctly recall that you bled a great deal with Jeremy, and –,”

“Ross, I’m _fine_ –,”

“ – and to have done it all alone, with only Prudie, cannot have been safe,” Ross carried on. 

“Lots of women give birth with nothing more, and many with even less,” Demelza said, with a mulish set to her jaw that Ross knew, and disliked all the more because he had recently seen it in her brother’s face. He was still not sure how he felt about the two Carne boys being in the district, being so close and so familiar. He didn’t grudge Demelza her brothers, and they both seemed to be settling into the district well enough, but each of them had a habit of betraying some similarity to Demelza at unexpected moments. This expression on Demelza’s face now made her look remarkably like her eldest brother, Sam, for whom Ross harboured a particular distaste, bordering on resentment, because of his fervent Methodism. “I’ve had two before, Ross,” Demelza was saying. “And Prudie helped with both of ‘em, and I’ve helped more than a few children into the world in Sawle. I know what’s to do, Ross.” Ross grimaced, but Demelza offered a final thrust. “Dwight often said women’d do better having me and Mrs Zacky than him,” she reminded him.

Ross scowled. “You’ll do me the favour of allowing me to worry about you,” he snapped. “For God’s sake, Demelza, to take such a risk –,”

“There was no time –,”

“Well, there’s time now!” Ross’s voice had risen, and it roused the baby. Her eyes opened, impossibly big in her tiny face, and then she began to cry. Demelza made a sound in her throat, frustrated and annoyed, and then she lifted Clowance into her arms and began to rock her. 

“There, there, my darling,” she soothed. “’Tis your papa, that’s all. He’s got such a loud voice, hm? We didn’t mean to wake you, my love. Shh, shh.” Ross grimaced at the gentle chastisement, but he couldn’t deny he’d grown too loud to keep any child peacefully asleep, let alone a new-born. Still, he had been provoked, and Demelza knew it, and she must take her share of the blame. 

“Mama and Papa were both too loud,” he said, to the room in general. Demelza looked troubled when she met his eyes, but she didn’t try to defend herself. “Is she hungry, or just disgruntled at being woken?” he asked. 

“She fed afore she went to sleep, but not much,” Demelza said doubtfully. But she balanced the baby carefully between arm and belly, and used her free hand to push aside the neck of her nightgown. Her breasts were full, milk already coming in. She offered one to Clowance, who for a moment seemed as though she had no interest. Then she latched on, and began sucking greedily, her tears drying up as she fed. Demelza winced a little at first, but then she settled back against the pillows and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to quarrel,” she said wearily. “Not today.”

“Neither do I,” Ross muttered. 

“I’m so glad of her, Ross.”

“And I too – don’t doubt that, Demelza.” He shifted up the bed, very carefully so as not to disturb Clowance. But the child seemed content enough, drinking her fill of her mother’s milk, and Ross leaned up against the headboard and put an arm around Demelza’s shoulders. She leaned against him. “She’s perfect,” he said again. “And of course I’m glad you both seem well. But there’s still so much that could…” He couldn’t say it. There was so much that could still go wrong: for Demelza, for the child. It was a hard winter already, and Clowance was so very small, held in Demelza’s arms and suckling at her breast. The bedroom was far too cold for her, though the fire was built up. Far too cold. Prudie must be told to keep the fire going in here at all times; it must not be allowed to go out, even overnight, until mother and daughter were through the treacherous first weeks. And Demelza…the fear of childbed fever was never far from Ross’s mind, during her pregnancies and after the birth. And no Dwight to care for her. “Please let me send for Dr Choake,” he said softly. “It would ease my mind, my love. I worry. You must know I worry for you.”

Demelza sighed, and rested her head on his shoulder. “As I worry for you, every time you put yourself at risk,” she pointed out, but gently, with no real antagonism in her voice. Ross could find no answer for that. If she’d accused him, if she said that with anger, he could have defended himself. But not from her gentleness. Then she spoke again, in a different tone. “I don’t like Dr Choake,” she said, low and unhappy and with a little of that mulish stubbornness that she’d shown before. 

“Neither do I,” he replied, “but the only other doctor for miles is Behenna, and he’s the other side of Truro. I doubt he’d come so far. Choake is closer, and at least we know him. He’s got over his dislike of me, these days. More or less.”

“I don’t like him,” Demelza repeated. “I’d have preferred the other, if he’d have come. At least he don’t know me.” Confused, startled, Ross pulled away so he could look at her. She kept her gaze lowered, on Clowance, who was still sucking away, though slower now. The baby’s eyes were closed, and Ross thought she was likely half-asleep, full of milk and content to be so close to her mama. Jeremy had often fallen asleep that way; Ross had grown used to stumbling across Demelza, trapped on a chair or in bed by the slumbering child in her arms. Not that she’d ever minded. She’d spent hours, sometimes, just watching Jeremy sleep. He’d not wondered at it at the time, but now it struck him as strange, for she’d not been so with Julia. Perhaps it had been _because_ of Julia that she’d idled so much time with Jeremy. 

“What do you mean?” he asked, when Demelza seemed unwilling to explain further. “Why would it matter if he didn’t know you?” She pursed her lips, and Ross began to scowl. “Has Choake ever – said anything to you?” he demanded. “Or acted –,” He broke off, not entirely certain what he meant, only knowing that Demelza did not take such vehement dislikes to people except when badly provoked. 

“He always _looks_ at me,” she muttered. Clowance finished feeding, and Demelza pulled her nightgown back up and looked around, searching for something. 

“I’ll do it,” Ross said. He found a cloth, put it over his shoulder, and carefully took the child from Demelza. Clowance blinked sleepy eyes at him – blue, just like her mother’s, though Ross knew that might change, still. He put her against his shoulder and gently patted her back. After a few moments she hiccupped, but she didn’t burp. Ross kept her at his shoulder, to give her a chance, and turned back to Demelza. “What do you mean, he looks at you?” he pressed her. “Looks at you how?”

“Like he’s always remembering I’m common. Like…like he always remembers seeing me when I was just…”

“You were never ‘just’ anything,” Ross corrected her, speaking as mildly as he could. “And you’ve never been common.”

“Oh, Ross,” Demelza sighed. “You know what I mean. ‘Tis more than seven years since we wed, but some folks have long memories, and he’s one.” She squirmed a little; her nose wrinkled in distaste, as if she was picturing Choake in her mind and disliked what she saw. It was on the tip of Ross’s tongue to say that having her brothers living so close was hardly a way to discourage those long memories, but it was an unkind thing to even think, unworthy of them both. “He’d come and look down his nose at me, and at her,” Demelza added. Her voice changed then, softening, as she reached out to take her daughter back. “And who could look down their nose at you, my darling,” she cooed. “Oh, that’s right, good girl. Come back and have another sleep.” Ross helped her to lay Clowance back into the little nest, and he made sure the blankets were tucked closely enough. Then he rose, and went to put another couple of logs on the fire. 

“We must keep this fire going,” he said, while his thoughts flew wildly. He was furious that Choake’s snobbishness had made such an impact on Demelza, and annoyed that she _still_ felt a distinction between herself and any others of their class – and it was _their_ class now, not his alone, she had proved that over and over again, meeting with gentry and even lesser nobility with ease and dignity. And he was still worried about Demelza’s wellbeing, and that of their new daughter. He still felt that even Choake would be better than no doctor at all. But he could not easily dismiss Demelza’s concerns, ill-founded though he felt they were, for to do so would be to act as if her feelings didn’t matter to him, which was far from the truth. If only Dwight were here, if only – but it was useless thinking like that. Dwight was not here. 

“I suppose you’d better send for him,” Demelza said from the bed, sounding wearier than ever. “Though I feel fine. Only a little tired, that’s all.”

Ross turned back to her. She had lost that radiantly happy look that she’d had when he’d come into the room, and he was sorry for it. Without it, her pallor seemed more striking, and he could see the way she leaned back against the pillows, as if she would have liked to follow Clowance’s example and have a sleep. He went back to the bedside, and smoothed a few errant strands of hair behind her ears.

“What if I send for Mrs Zacky?” he offered. “She ought to know enough about childbirth to know if I – if we should worry.” Mrs Zacky had had over a dozen of her own, and helped with Jinny’s birthing, and other births in the village besides. She would know if there were any signs of danger, for either Demelza or little Clowance. She knew enough to know her limits, too, and would tell Ross to send for Choake if she thought it was necessary.

Demelza began to smile again, not as bright as before but still a pleasure to see. “Yes, Ross, I’d like Mrs Zacky,” she agreed. “And – and if she thinks there’s aught to worry about, then…then you may send for Dr Choake, and I’ll manage him.” It was a compromise Ross could live with, though he secretly resolved that if he did have to send for Choake, that man would be made to understand that any disrespect towards Demelza would cost him his fee. He nodded his agreement, kissed her briefly, and kissed Clowance’s forehead. 

“Very well,” he said. “Now, did you want the soup, or was it all a scheme to get me up here? I can take it away with me, if you’d rather sleep.”

“You may take it away with you, if you please,” said Demelza primly. Ross grinned at her, and had to kiss his new daughter again, on her soft cheeks and her soft forehead and her tiny little nose. Clowance stirred, but did not wake. “Go on with you,” Demelza laughed. “She isn’t going anywhere. Ask Prudie to keep Jeremy busy, will you, and let me sleep a bit?”

“I’ll keep him entertained,” Ross assured her. “Has he seen her yet? Then I’ll bring him up later, when you’ve had a rest.” He kissed her forehead, and her lips, and felt her smiling against his mouth. “I love you,” he said, very quietly. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I do, Ross,” she said, just as quietly. “And I love you. I’m – so happy.” Then she yawned, and Ross chuckled and withdrew. 

“Get some sleep,” he instructed. “I’ll bring Jeremy to meet his sister later. And I must send over to Caroline to let her know.”

“Just as you please.” Demelza yawned again and settled down a bit further in the bed. “Just as you please, Ross.”

Ross took up the bowl of soup, cast one last look at his newborn daughter and his beloved wife, and then he left them to rest.


End file.
